Content

Sports

Former Tennessee State University track star and medalist in the 1960, 1964, and 1968 Olympic games, Ralph Boston was born in Laurel, Mississippi, on May 9, 1939. Boston attended Tennessee State Unive... Continue Reading »

A favorite track of NASCAR fans across the nation is the Bristol Motor Speedway. Its two annual Winston Cup events (currently the Food City 500 in April and the Goody's 500 in August) attract the... Continue Reading »

Ray Bussard, nationally recognized swim coach at the University of Tennessee, was born on August 12, 1928, in Hot Springs, Virginia. After attending Ohio University on a football scholarship, Bussard ... Continue Reading »

When Vanderbilt University organized a varsity football team in 1886, it was probably the first Tennessee college to do so. Maryville College began playing intramural games in 1889 under coach, captai... Continue Reading »

Nathan W. Dougherty, engineer, educator, and athlete, was born on March 23, 1886, at Hales Mill, Virginia, the son of Samuel and Mary Ellen Vernon Dougherty. When he was twelve years old, young Doughe... Continue Reading »

Long before Tennessee became famous for the Tennessee Walking Horse in the mid-1900s, the state was known throughout the country as the center for thoroughbred horses. For most of the nineteenth centu... Continue Reading »

From the Stone Castle (Bristol Municipal Stadium) and its Medieval Gothic architecture to the symmetry and sleek lines of the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, from personalities like General Robert R. Neyland... Continue Reading »

Europeans brought hunting dogs when they began their exploration of the North American continent. Mountain Curs and American coonhounds were the most prominent imported breeds. With the exception of t... Continue Reading »

The Iroquois Steeplechase, a rite of spring for horse enthusiasts, has been held every second Saturday in May since 1941. The amateur horse races take place at a three-mile course of wood, water, and ... Continue Reading »

Entrepreneur and philanthropist Cal Johnson was born to Cupid and Harriet Johnson in Knoxville on October 14, 1844. The Johnson family, slaves of Colonel Pless McClung, lived on the site of the old Fa... Continue Reading »

University of Tennessee All-American football player and coach John T. Majors was born May 21, 1935, in Lynchburg, the son of Shirley and Elizabeth Majors. Shirley Majors coached football, first as a ... Continue Reading »

The game of marbles is an ancient and universal pastime, with Roman, French, and British roots. In Tennessee, Indian burials of the Mississippian culture have yielded clay and stone spheres speculativ... Continue Reading »

The most successful coach in Vanderbilt University football history, Daniel E. McGugin was born on July 29, 1879, in Tingley, Iowa, the son of Benjamin Franklin and Melissa A. Crutchfield McGugin. McG... Continue Reading »

The only major league professional basketball team ever based in Tennessee during the twentieth century was the Memphis franchise of the American Basketball Association (ABA). Known by different names... Continue Reading »

John A. Merritt, one of Tennessee's most successful football coaches, was born on January 26, 1926, in Falmouth, Kentucky, the son of a stonemason, Bradley Merritt and his wife, Grace. After comp... Continue Reading »

Although Memphis fielded a professional baseball team in 1877, organized minor league baseball in Tennessee dates to 1885 and the founding of the Southern League of Professional Clubs (SL), a circuit ... Continue Reading »

The first professional hockey team in Tennessee to be a member of the National Hockey League (NHL) was the Nashville Predators. Professional ice hockey has been played in Nashville since the early 196... Continue Reading »

For more than 100 years, owners have brought together the top pointing dogs in the country to compete in a premier stake known as the National Field Trial Championship. Most championship competitions ... Continue Reading »